According to the New York Times, the United States has unveiled a list of sanctions they will call for the UNSC to impose upon Iran following Iran’s refusal to stop enriching uranium on the August 31 deadline.  The sanctions are, I believe, a good start if they can be agreed upon and if they can be enacted better than sanctions upon other nations.
The proposed sanctions are as follows:

• Embargo on the sale of nuclear-related equipment and materials to Iran
• Restriction of travel for Iranian leaders direcly involved in Iran’s nuclear program
• Freeze the nation’s foreign assets

In addition, the NYT reports “the Bush administration is also seeking to persuade European financial institutions to end new lending to Iran.”  An official IAEA report is due today in the Security Council.

It’s unclear if Russia or China, two of Iran’s trading partners, will comply with the proposed sanctions, but given the list of sanctions above it will shine a poor light upon any nation who either disapproves of the sanctions or vetos any sanctions.

In addition, the sanctions effort may also be hampered by a report to be issued Thursday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, in which inspectors will describe only slow progress by Iran in enriching uranium.

The report, according to diplomats familiar with its contents, will describe how Iran has resumed producing small amounts of enriched uranium since temporarily stopping in the spring, but has not increased the rate of production.

Furthermore, the report is expected to say that the purity of the uranium enrichment would not be high enough for use in nuclear weapons, but only for power plants. Iran has long insisted that its program is for peaceful purposes only.

Why has Iran only made “slow progress” in enriching uranium?  A European official believes it was self-imposed to partially appease the UNSC while an American official believes the reason is because Iran ran into technical difficulties or is hiding part of the nation’s nuclear program; the latter is all but known.

In terms of what Iranian leaders have told the public relating to the nation’s supposed full cooperation with the IAEA and a transparent nuclear program, the NYT reports the IAEA report likely will shed some light on just how false those statements are.

RELATED: Iranian blogger Kash of Kash’s Newsroom -  I’m a patriotic Iranian. That’s why I say ‘no’ to Tehran’s nuclear program.

Right Truth linked with Ahmadinejad calls Bush a coward...